


Silvered Steps

by Gryphonrhi



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), John the Balladeer - Manly Wade Wellman
Genre: Descendants - Freeform, Gen, I Don't Even Know, crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28105128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryphonrhi/pseuds/Gryphonrhi
Summary: It was a beautiful cemetery there in the moonlight.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 39





	Silvered Steps

It was a beautiful cemetery there in the moonlight, with the marble and white granite gleaming softly under the half-moon and the trees swaying softly with the breeze. Angels awaited judgment day in a forest of obelisks, constructed tree stumps and covered urns spoke of humility along the roads, and twining carved ivy spoke of a hope for eternal life in the hereafter.

The gates had been closed and locked well before sunset, inconvenient to both mourners and drug dealers. (The area had been far more reputable decades before when the graveyard was founded.) Twilight set in by six this late in the year, so it was still no great problem for Tom to blend in with the shadows of the trees and wait out the volunteers and groundskeeper to be still inside, safely inside, when the final gate locked with a solid clunk of latches and locks setting into place. 

Compared to nights overseas, and for that matter to nights during his training with the army, this was the lap of luxury and he found a shaded, sheltered spot to sit down with his kit and wait for full night. He pulled out his last MRE and his canteen, refilled at the cemetery's water fountain, and ate his dinner while he waited.

He tidied away his trash from the same years' habits, pulled his kitbag around for a backrest, and opened the latches on his guitar case silently -- another habit from those long days and nights of not caring to draw more attention than need be. His guitar hummed softly as he pulled her out, the strings gleaming silver in the twilight as the moon shone high overhead and the sun finished her nightly retreat into the west.

He was expecting no few odd things that evening, even hoped for one or two, but the man hadn't expected a wolf bigger than any of the K-9 German shepherds.

The wolf came trotting down the road, some indistinct dark shade in the moonlight, a paper bag carried in its mouth, ears and tail up with good humor. He stopped just out of guitar and arm's reach and tilted his head to the side, ears pricking forward with curiosity.

Equally curious, the man shrugged and indicated the spot across from him. "Room enough there, and I've some water if you find fountains inconvenient."

The wolf nodded and dropped his bag down, nudging it forward a little with his nose so it lay between the two. The man gave him an amused look. "I already ate, thank you just the same. Need me to unwrap it, or is there foil I can use for a bowl?"

The wolf nudged it forward again, and the man shrugged and opened the bag, watching to see if he'd have to bet his own speed against the wolf's teeth. The eyes across from him were far too intelligent, however, and he won his bet; he was unscathed when he pulled out a long, well-wrapped sandwich. It still faintly warm in the foil wrapping, and he said mildly, "A man's nose could be tempted by this smell; I can't imagine how you've waited. Mind if I take a small slice for myself after all?"

The wolf _nodded_ , and that did make him shake his head. "I appreciate that. I'm Tom." He unwrapped the sandwich neatly -- long, thick, and mostly meat -- and put it on the paper bag for the wolf. His knife came out of his boot to cut a couple inches off one end. The MRE had been enough for calories, but sometimes you wanted the taste of something that hadn't sat in plastic for ages.

As soon as Tom had his share, the wolf tore into the rest of it. Tom ate his slice slowly, savoring it even if he didn't know what some of the ingredients were. When the last bites were gone, he folded and arranged the foil into a wide, shallow bowl and filled it from his canteen. The wolf had devoured the rest of the sandwich while he worked and showed no hesitation in drinking.

Tom refilled it again when he'd emptied it and went back to tuning his guitar. All he said was, "I'd imagine that fur gets hot."

The wolf finished the second round of water and nosed the foil back into the paper sack. Tom chuckled and helped him clean it up. "Yeah, hands are better for this. I'd never heard your kind could change at the quarter moons?" That got an amused huff of air and Tom smiled and warned him, "This isn't the best night you could be here, you know."

The wolf only huffed again, lips curving upward with a bare hint of fang showing, and settled down onto his haunches to listen to the guitar. The sun was far enough down and the wind was blowing towards the empty office at the gate, so Tom chanced it and played "Let the Circle Be Unbroken." The wolf's tail whapped counterpoint to the beat and he settled down with is chin on his paws to listen.

Tom nodded and kept playing for him, old songs from the hills where he'd been raised and newer ones he'd learned in the army and in a few bars on leave. The wolf was a better audience than many he'd had, and Tom was almost sorry to look up at midnight and see the girl standing behind them.

The wolf turned, too, and she was well worth the time to look at, even if a man hadn't just spent eight years in the army and much of that off in places where the army didn't think female soldiers should be assigned. She was small and slight, with her skin drained of color by the moonlight and dark curls shadowing that heart-shaped face. Her cheekbones held a promise of sharpness, her chin the possibility of a point, but she’d not yet grown into them. She wore a sleeveless white dress that swept down to her feet, a shawl over her shoulders made to be pretty, not warm, and her bare feet poked out from under her hem. She was young but dignified, and wistful, and aching behind all of it.

She was also faintly transparent and haloed with silver.

Tom nodded to her, sorry himself to have been right, and said, "Good evening."

She looked at him and at his guitar and she smiled a little with that sad face. "Good evening, yourself. You're not who I was waiting for...?"

"No," he said, very gently. "I'm not, and yet I am. I'm sorry to tell you that Kendrick Martin is dead."

Her hands were insubstantial in the moonlight as she covered her face with them, and she wavered in the moonlight like ripples blown on water. While she yet lingered, Tom said firmly, "He promised to dance with you at your wedding. I can't give you a wedding, Latisha West, nor yet the wedding to him you wanted, but I can play you a song or three, and tell you a story or six, and I can dance with you in this edged moonlight, if that will help you go free to wherever calls you."

The worst of being a ghost, apparently, was an inability to cry. Her face twisted with the need, but she had no tears to shed as she stood there. The wolf came up to his haunches, forelegs planted, and he tilted his head back and howled for her, heartbroken and haunted himself. None of the neighborhood dogs took it up; the sound fell into the midnight silence and fell away into silence itself after that.

Latisha let the wolf weep for her and took some measure of comfort from it. Enough to let her turn and ask, "How do you know my name? What are you doing here?" She asked him last and most sadly, "And how did Kendrick die?"

"He died fast," Tom told her honestly, grateful not to have to lie. "Faster than I could even get to him and I was the nearest man to him on the patrol. He was one of my patrol, and we would have gotten him to the medics, but he was gone and no coming back from it. We let him go and held the memorial for him, and we missed him when he was gone, for his timing with a joke or a story to keep the peace among us." 

He smiled at the ghost and said, "And there wasn't a man in the patrol who hadn't seen your picture or heard his wishes to be married when this tour was over and he could get home to you."

"But you're here," she said quietly. "Did he know...?"

"The letter from your mother waited for us in camp," Tom told her quietly. "I knew that promise would worry Kendrick, and I fretted that it had held you here, too. So I came to see. I can wait this long to get home to my father and the mountains."

She studied him and smiled at last, faint and startled under her grief, but Tom had no trouble seeing why Kendrick had loved her. "You're Kendrick's Sergeant Tom, with the silver strings on the guitar. Kendrick wrote about you. He was so proud to be in your patrol."

"And we were glad to have him," Tom told her. "I was sorry to leave my patrol and the army, but I gave them my years as my father did, and his before that."

Latisha looked at him and smiled a little. "And he's getting no younger, as I'm getting no older?"

Tom nodded. "I'm afraid so. May I dance with you for Kendrick Martin’s sake, Miss West?"

"Are you going to see his grave, too, Sergeant?"

He didn't bother to point out that he had left the army; it had happened since her death and she had enough other changes to absorb. And when he was still traveling in his old army coat with the patches still on (he'd done nothing to dishonor the unit and the coat was warm), still carrying his belongings in the familiar khaki duffel, Tom could see her point. "I am."

"Will you take a handful of dirt from my grave to him, then? If you will, I'll gladly dance with you."

Tom nodded to her and promised solemnly, "I'll do that, Latisha." He held out a hand. "May I?"

The wolf stood up, then, and went and nosed at her hand. Where he touched her, he grew less solid and she grew more so. She froze, not sure whether to yank her hand back or not, but his tail wagged, and they looked at each other for a long moment that made light dance along her face and shadows dance in her hair. What she said at last was, “One dance then? May I?”

His tail kept wagging and she smiled, settling her hand more deeply into his fur. Fur that went intangible even as she developed a weight to her.

Tom looked at them, at the wolf going silver and white and faintly transparent. At the girl who’d acquired an almost feral cast to her face, barely longer hands and feet, and that widow’s peak of dark, springing hair, all of them almost solid enough to cast a proper shadow. He looked at their reversals, and he didn’t ask. It was their business and it helped him carry out his own promise.

Instead he said quietly, “I’d like the dance, yes, to keep his promise. And in return, I’ll take the dirt from your grave to Kendrick’s. You have my word on that, as you had his on this.”

She smiled, her teeth a little sharp but her face light and happy, and put her hand in his. Tom sang as they danced, to give them the tempo, and the wolf’s tail beat a soft but steady beat for them, and they danced in a Tennessee graveyard to the “Tennessee Waltz.”

Latisha stepped back from the last measure and curtseyed to him. “Fair travels to you, Tom the Balladeer, and safe partings from the meetings that wait along your road. Remember to keep your strings bright.” She turned from him and repeated her graceful motion to the wolf, her feet going pale and moon-streaked again as she came upright again. “Fair travels to you on your road, Wanderer, and safe paths through your dangers. There’s magic waiting for you, and stranger things than that. Be careful and be cared for.” She ran her fingers along his fur, rubbed just under his ears, and by the time he was solid again, she was gone.

Tom sighed and sat down again and looked at the wolf. “She didn’t show me her grave. I’ll have to ask at the office in the morning. Did you know you could do that, could give her a last dance?”

That got a nod and Tom said more slowly, “And is that why you came?”

That got as close to a shrug as a wolf could manage; well enough to tell Tom it wasn’t an explanation he was ever going to get. So he sighed and said tiredly, “Well, you’re welcome to the bottom of my sleeping bag as a mattress, but I think I’ll set it up now. Dawn will come soon enough, now, unless you think we’ve more restless dead to worry about?”

The wolf shook his head and nosed at the roll of sleeping bag at the bottom of his kit. Tom smiled and unrolled it and said his prayers quietly before he went to sleep, rather than possibly bother his companion. The wolf just turned a circle and then sprawled along his back with a rumbling sound closer to a purr than a growl.

Tom slept just fine, and woke even better, but with the wolf gone. That was all right. They might yet run into each other again, and in the meantime, Tom might just make it home again with all his promises fulfilled. That’d be a fine end to this chapter of his life.

And so it was.

**Author's Note:**

> Thomas is John Silver's son, just out of the Army Rangers after serving in the Gulf War. Why should John be the only one wandering? (John, of course, is the main character in Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer stories. I recommend them highly.)
> 
> Yes, that was Oz from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He’d heard rumors that a girl out of a werewolf family had died early but not peacefully and went to see what needed to be done. He didn’t expect this, but has no complaints.
> 
> This made sense when I started it, I think, but it took a few years to figure out how to end it. I hope at least one other person likes it.


End file.
